Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 by Jennifer Roberson Page B

graceful when
    clambering down over piled rocks and boulders. Even for my Northern bascha.
    I drew in a deep breath, preparing to bellow complaints about her horse. But I lost the impulse the
    instant I saw movement behind her.
    Vashni? No—
    Movement flowed down the mountainside, disappeared behind rocks.
    I dropped the reins. "Del!"
    Then it sprang up onto a boulder, and I saw it clearly.
    "Del—" I was running for the rocks, yanking sword out of sheath. Her face was turned toward me.
    I'd never make it, never make it—
    "— behind you —"
    Atop the rock she spun, grasping for her sword hilt, and went down hard beneath the leaping
    sandtiger.
    EIGHT
    WHEN in the midst of deadly danger, time slows. Fragments. It is me, the moment, the
    circumstances.
    As it was now.
    I saw Del, down. The glint of sun off her bared blade, lying against stone. The spill of white-blond
    braid. The sandtiger's compact, bunched body, blending into the rocky background as it squatted over
    her.
    I bellowed at the cat as I ran. Anything to distract him, to draw his attention from his prey. Del was
    unmoving: probably unconscious, possibly dead.
    "Try me!" I shouted. "Try me, you thrice-cursed son of a Salset goat—"
    The sandtiger growled, then yowled as it saw me. I threatened his prey. For a moment he continued
    to hunch over Del, then came up into a crouch, flexing shoulders. Jaw dropped open. Green eyes glared.
    Everything was slowed to half-time. I watched the bunching of haunches, the leap; judged
    momentum and direction; knew without doubt what was necessary. My nearly vertical blade, at the end
    of thrusting arms, met him in midair. Sank in through belly fur, hide, muscle, vessels and viscera, spitting
    him to the hilt- I felt the sudden weight, heard the scream, smelled the rank breath, the musk of a mature
    male. Without pausing I ducked head and dropped shoulder, swung, let his momentum carry him through
    his leap. Over my head, and down.
    I was conscious of the horses screaming, but I paid them no attention. I was focused only on the
    sandtiger, now sprawled on the ground, jaws agape, tongue lolling. For all I knew he was dead already,
    but I jerked the blade free, then swung it up, over, down, like a club, and severed his head from his
    body.
    Then I dropped the sword. I turned, took two running strides, climbed up into the boulders.
    "Bascha . . ."
    She lay mostly face-down, one arm sprawled across a cluster of rocks. Her torso was in a shallow
    guliey between two boulders. Legs were twisted awry.
    "Del—?"
    There was blood, and torn burnous. I caught the tangled rope of hair and moved it aside, baring the
    back of her neck to check for wounds. She had not had time to face the cat fully. His leap had been flat,
    then tending down. Front paws had curled over her shoulders, grasping, while back paws raked out,
    reaching for purchase.
    He had leaped at her back, intending to take his prey down from behind. But Del had moved, had
    begun to turn toward him as I yelled, had begun to unsheathe her sword, and he'd missed his target.
    Instead of encircling her neck with his jaws, snapping it, piercing the jugular, the big canine teeth had dug
    a puncture and furrow into her right forearm and the top of her left shoulder at the curve of her neck. The
    main impetus of the bite had fouled on harness and sheath.
    I planted my feet as firmly as possible in the treacherous footing, then bent, caught a limp arm, and
    pulled her up. I squatted, ducked, levered her over one shoulder, head hanging, braid dangling against
    my thigh, while her legs formed a counterweight before me. I rose carefully, balancing the slack-limbed
    drape of her body. Teeth clenched, I made my way slowly down the boulders, found level footing on the
    flat, sandy crown of the bluff, and carried her to the lean-to. I had tossed her rolled bedding there while
    unpacking the gelding; with care I slid her over and down, arranged her limbs, set her head against the
    bedroll.